New WhatsApp Encryption Upgrade’s Top 5 Questions

Do you use Whatsapp? If you’re a Whatsapp user, you already know something about it which was happened last week earlier in the month of April. Last Monday of April 4, 2016 a messaging app Whatsapp has become the largest encrypted messaging app in the world. Want to know why? Because of by launching its end-to-end encryption upgrade across all communication platforms. Like what we thought about the Apple versus FBI case was unprecedented statement in favor of digital freedom, the encryption debate makes the announcement to resulted to a whole new level. As we user of Whatsapp, we have some things in our mind which need answers. What is the new Whatsapp upgrade all about?

What do you mean by End-To-End Encryption?

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) means the method of encryption that only allows the recipient of a message to read it, and prevents third parties access to it. In E2EE, the data is encrypted on the sender’s system and only the recipient’s device can decrypt it. So it only means that Whatsapp is now secured to use. According to WhatsApp CEO and co-founder Jan Koum, “Now every message, photo, video, file, and voice message you send, is end-to-end encrypted by default if you and the people you message use the latest version of our app. Even your group chats and voice calls are encrypted.” The users don’t have to worry anymore about changing its settings because this encryption was already set to default and all the users can benefit without having to change the settings. It only means that Whatsapp cannot see, intercept or retrieve any conversations even if the users want to.

Why WhatsApp has decided to upgrade for E2EE?

If you haven’t read things about Whatsapp, they had a commitment for protecting their users’ data from the government but according to some people, the fact is Whatsapp was recently flagged by the EFF in its “Who’s Got Your Back”report because of its failure to comply with the industry protection standards. This upgrade is said to be long-awaited for quite a while and according to Whatsapp co-founder Brian Acton, giving their users the rights and benefits for privacy is just a way to give them back what they always used to have. “If you look at human history in total, people evolved, and civilizations evolved with private conversations and private speech. If anything, we’re bringing that back to individuals”, he adds.

Since the new upgrade was done, how will it affect the average Whatsapp users?

Whatsapp is now one of the most secure ways to communicate through electronic gadgets because of its new upgrade. Even the most sensitive data can now be exchanged such as bank accounts, businesses and personal information without anyone being able to intercept to it. Whatsapp cannot provide copies of any of our communications to the government authorities so that is one of the best thing which was happened from the upgrade.

Is everything about Whatsapp going to be encrypted?

Mica Lee who was a journalist at The Intercept found a line in WhatsApp’s privacy terms saying that date, time and recipient numbers may be achieved with its service. They also claims that the actual message contents will not held on their servers.

Why Encryption in WhatsApp is important?

With growing numbers of its users, WhatsApp is one of the most-used messaging app globally co-owned by Facebook.

To protect yourself online is the best thing that the WhatsApp upgrade has provided to its users and we hope that other apps can do the same thing thing. Afterall, privacy will always be on top of our priority to protect ourselves from cyber-crimes and scammers. Aside from it, you can always use a vpn service to make it sure that your data is fully protected.